(CIDRAP News) In an effort to improve developing countries' access to potential pandemic influenza vaccines, the WHO (World Health Organization) said today it is awarding grants to six countries to help them develop the capacity to make flu vaccine.
(CIDRAP News) Faced with the reality that an effective vaccine is not likely to be available for at least the first several months of an influenza pandemic, some corporations are buying antiviral medications for their employeesboth to protect them and to improve the chances that the company could keep providing vital products and services through a pandemic.
(CIDRAP News) In the wake of a clinical conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) has modified its recommendations on treatment for patients with H5N1 avian influenza by strengthening a warning against corticosteroids and suggesting the option of using higher doses of oseltamivir in some cases, among other advice.
(CIDRAP News) The final epidemiologic report on the United Kingdom's first H5N1 avian influenza outbreak says the source of the virus remains unknown but might have been contaminated turkey meat imported from Hungary.
(CIDRAP News) Governmental plans for an influenza pandemic are missing an important opportunity to improve US preparedness, according to two new reports: They are not reaching out to communities and grass-roots groups that could refine plan details and increase public support.
(CIDRAP News) The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the nation's first H5N1 influenza vaccine, made by Sanofi Pasteur, which federal officials hope will buy some time to develop a more precisely targeted vaccine if the virus evolves into a pandemic strain.
(CIDRAP News) While Indonesia has drawn the media spotlight for withholding H5N1 virus samples for several months, China has been withholding H5N1 samples from humans for much longer, according to a Canadian Press (CP) report published yesterday.
(CIDRAP News) Bangladesh's livestock ministry said today that H5N1 avian influenza has spread to two more farms, and Cambodian officials have reported poultry outbreaks near where a 13-year-old girl recently died of the disease, according to news services.
(CIDRAP News) – An influenza vaccine grown in insect cells instead of chicken eggs proved safe and yielded a good immune response in a trial in healthy adults, possibly signaling a significant advance in flu vaccine production technology, according to a report published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
(CIDRAP News) The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that H5N1 avian influenza caused the deaths of two teenage girls, a 15-year-old in Egypt and a 13-year-old in Cambodia.